Hillary names Tim Kaine running mate, and last thoughts on Trump

We are done with the Republicans in Cleveland and are almost set to get inundated by the Democrats in Philadelphia. Before we move on, some news from the campaign: Hillary Clinton has tapped Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Politically, it looks good because Virginia is very much a “swing” state. But the Bernie Sanders supporters can’t be happy that Clinton picked such a big moderate.

In other news Donald Trump, in an obvious play for Bernie supporters, has slammed the Democratic National Committee upon revelations of their underhanded tactics against Bernie and in favor of Hillary.

Still with Trump, he held one of his usual press conferences on Friday in which he declared the Republican convention a success. And despite what the mainstream media will have you believe, this convention in Cleveland really was successful in a lot of ways. Violence didn’t erupt in the streets to any great extent, and the party seemed remarkably united inside the hall — thanks mainly to Ted Cruz, whose negative attitude towards the nominee simply served to galvanize and unite everyone in the GOP rank-and-file behind Trump.

Trump really nailed home a lot of the issues in his acceptance speech, which ran a very long 75 minutes. It had a law and order, anti-terrorism type of theme to it, and whether you agree with Trump or not, he came across as a guy who’s serious and means business. He was not his usual buffoon self. And the speech by his daughter Ivanka cast Donald in the most positive light. His address got a very positive response from most people watching.

Of course, the usual media folks were panning the speech afterwards by saying it painted a very dark picture of America. There were criticisms that Trump painted a negative portrayal of an America nobody would recognize. President Barack Obama said something on those lines the other day, saying Trump’s doom and gloom doesn’t match reality.

If this is going to be the Democrats’ party line in this campaign, that Trump is too gloomy, they are going to be in serious trouble.

Voters know what’s going on in America. They see the layoffs going on, they see the plant closings! They see these shootings going on, they see the protests, and they see the terrorism on American soil and abroad. Just this week there was yet another tragedy, this time at a mall in Munich, Germany, where nine people were shot and killed in a mass shooting.

So when Donald Trump is going up there on the stump saying the world is going to hell, people nod their heads and say “yeah”. I’m convinced that every time something terrible like this happens, it’s more votes for Trump.

Democrats need to get their heads out of the sand and realize these are exactly the issues everyone is concerned about right now. Hurling accusations at Trump of promoting doom and gloom will not fly with the electorate — not in this election.